The Austin Chronicle has a fairly lengthy piece on e-voting in general and Hart’s machines in particular. If the article is presenting the situation accurately (and I have no reason to doubt that it is) then it looks like Hart InterCivic may be one of the good guys.
There’s some good stuff about e-voting machine design in this piece; it’s well worth the read.
I sent an email yesterday to Hart InterCivic with the same tone and some of the same words that I used in my rant yesterday. I did so hoping that I would get a reply; I don’t think it’s fair to attack somebody publicly without giving them a chance to respond. And within hours, I received a reply from Michelle Shafer, the very person quoted in the Wired article. Apparently, the interview was conducted at 1 AM on election day and the quote was lifted from the context of a much larger interview. (To be clear, Ms. Shafer is not accusing the journalist of anything. The point is simply that it was one comment from a much longer conversation.)
At any rate, her response to me was thoughtful and considerate enough to merit publication here. (I did ask for and receive Ms. Shafer’s permission before publishing this.) So here it is: (more…)
Wired is running a deeply disturbing story on problems with electronic voting machines. I won’t run through the litany of problems here, but I do want to point out a particularly heinous quote from one of the manufacturers: (more…)
